Tuesday, December 27, 2022

exciting DMCA times on my side blog

I received a DMCA notice for my wooden puzzle blog! It was a review of Unidragon's Alluring Fox (332 pieces). 

Google did not, interestingly enough, actually provide the notice, so I don't yet know whether this was overenforcement by Unidragon (which has a counterfeiting problem by makers of cheap knockoff puzzles) or something even more bizarre. Google instead directs me to Lumen to look up the notice, but Lumen doesn't seem to have posted it yet, so that's a tad frustrating.

I counternoticed. FWIW, I chose "I am the owner of this content." I got to use my position that 113(c) is underused by pointing out that a jigsaw puzzle is a useful article (it has a function beyond portraying its own appearance, to be put together), and thus that the right of the copyright owner in PGS works lawfully made part of useful articles does not extend to photos of the useful article used as part of commentaries/reviews. Even if a jigsaw puzzle isn't a useful article, I have no problem saying this is fair use, including the photo of the entire completed puzzle, which is important to show the overall quality of the puzzle (especially given the well-known problems of piece chipping on puzzles of this genre).

Now I wait!

2 comments:

Jessica Silbey said...

This would be a great class exercise!

Steve Mancuso said...

I pity the person assigned to your case.